Google Maps for Business Roadshow

I attended the Google Maps for Business meeting at the Googleplex yesterday.

Most of the meeting was focused on how businesses can create custom maps using Google Maps APIs and integrate those maps into their website to add additional functionality for their website visitors. Examples that were discussed included: mapping store locations, assets (asset tracking) and sales territories. For those of you that are interested in this, take this tour of Google’s Fusion Tables.

While most local businesses are unlikely to add a map to their website anytime soon, here are a few interesting facts that came out of the meeting:

40% of Google Maps usage is mobile.
That means that lots of your website visitors are viewing your web page from a mobile device. When is the last time you checked out how your website looks on a mobile screen? For Customer Lobby members, we have optimized your review page to be easily read on a mobile device.

19-20% of all internet users use Google Maps.
I was surprised that it was so low but it puts Google Maps importance into perspective for local businesses. As much as we all obsess over Google Maps ranking, it’s important not to forget about the other 80% of internet users that are learning about your business in some place other than Google Maps.

I asked Dylan Lorimer, Google Earth and Maps Product Manager, ‘Why are reviews from rich snippet enabled sites like Customer Lobby indexing into Google Maps so slowly?’ He didn’t know the answer but promised to get back to me. I will update this post when I learn more.